Latest Leica

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Character Dynamics - Mouthbat

Biography: The Mouthbat (Gorbachev) is created from the girl's feelings about her speaking, as well as her choice not to speak. It is only alive for the duration of the film, and does not have much of a history. The mouthbat is not very intelligent and is rather predictable, but it regards itself as a clever trickster. Its greatest desire is to be free, but feels something akin to anxiety the further away it gets from the girl. It keeps a safe distance from her for most of the film while being playful, swooping around and leading her into a chase.

Obstacles: The girl, who is trying to reobtain it and take away its freedom.

Status Relationships: It is of both higher and lower status than the girl. When it leads her around town, it is using its ability to fly to get the girl to perform a particular action and demonstrates that it has a higher status. However, the mouth is the only thing that the generally low-status girl treats with any kind of assertiveness. At the end she bests it and demonstrates her higher status.
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Character Dynamics - Vulture

Biography: The Vulture (Ronald Reagan) is a 46 year old Tibetan Salesman who has a strong sense of business ethics that occasionally interfere with his ruthless marketing tactics. He is Buddhist and has a wife and three children. Although he's a vulture, he has weak, stubby wings and can barely fly more than a few feet. He's based off the Eurasian Griffon Vulture, the iconic bird that feeds off of the dead in Tibetan Sky Burials.

Obstacles: The teachings of his religion and his business ethics prevent him from expanding his business as rapidly as he could.

Status Relationships: The vulture takes on a high-status role to most people who enter his store. He diverts their attention to whatever merchandise he may be selling while also trying to divert their money from their pockets to his own. He automatically assumes a higher status than the girl when she enters his shop, although he does not pay any attention to the creature, who obviously has no money.
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Character Dynamics - Creature

Biography: The Creature (AKA Margaret Thatcher) is a sort of animal that was created when a well-loved stuffed animal was discarded. The years of associations with and emotions felt towards the toy were released when the toy's owner outgrew it and left it behind. It does not know or remember what it was like to be a toy, but it was born knowing that somewhere and by someone it is cherished and loved. The creature is very fond of children. It lives in the streets and roams from place to place, but generally becomes familiar with all the children living in a particular area. It is very intelligent for an animal, and despite needing to eat and sleep, does not reproduce or age.

Obstacles: The creature is often done in by lidded garbage cans and dumpsters.

Status Relationships: Although the creature loves children, it is not obsequious to them. The Creature is of a higher status to The Girl, as she lets it lead her along and follows it without question. It regards most individuals with a catlike aloofness and often ignores most people who do not directly confront it.

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Character Dynamics - Girl

Bear with me here, I have four characters.



Biography: The main character of my grad film is a girl who has lost her mouth. Her name is Janice for the sake of this exercise, although in my head she is always "The Girl". She loses her mouth through disuse and eventually abandonment, as she sees it as a nuisance that only gets her into trouble. Although the decision to keep quiet was her own, her mouth literally sprouting wings and flying away shocks her. The girl is motivated by her desire to have the choice to speak, even if she doesn't exercise it. She might not choose to be vocal, but her lament is the loss of agency. The girl wishes to retain her ability to talk, even if she doesn't exercise it. She does not want to spend the rest of her life mute.


Obstacles: Her fear of heights and her inability to talk hinder her search for her mouth. Her own ambivalence also holds her back.

Status Relationships: The girl is very passive, and she has a low status with almost everyone she meets. Right at the start of the film, her status is very low compared to the adults she meets. Later on when she meets the Creature, the Creature is the one who needs to comfort her and guide her. She puts her trust in it, and gives it a higher status than herself. Later on when she meets the vulture, he tries to peddle his wares to her by exploiting her passivity and inability to refuse outright, and his status is therefore, also higher than the girl's. The only thing that has equal or lower status to the girl is her mouth. She views it as a troublesome part of herself that needs to be controlled, and she is downright confrontational with it.

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Second Post

That first one was getting pretty big, so I split it again:

Model of mouthbat:

Mouthbat skin test:

 

Rooftop environment:

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First post

Today I woke up and brushed my teeth and ate cereal and killed a moose with a broken toothbrush.. wait, wrong blog.
 This is all just stuff I showed at grad panel.

Third Leica:
Not on YouTube, so link here:
http://www.vimeo.com/17139465

360° of vulture model with wireframe. Sorry about the bad quality.

Walk cycle of early untextured vulture rig.

Skin test of textured vulture rig:

Rotating model of creature:

Creature skin test:

Creature facial test:

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